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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26174260">Birthday Present</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeastExpected_Archivist/pseuds/LeastExpected_Archivist'>LeastExpected_Archivist</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Drama, Graphic Violence, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Romance, no happy ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2002-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2002-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:00:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>949</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26174260</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeastExpected_Archivist/pseuds/LeastExpected_Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>by Bec</p><p>"Because it's my birthday, my love, and I wants it".</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Déagol/Gollum | Sméagol</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Least Expected</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Birthday Present</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Note from Amy Fortuna, the archivist: this story was originally archived at <a href="http://fanlore.org/wiki/Least_Expected">Least Expected</a>, which has been offline since 2002. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/leastexpected/profile">Least Expected collection profile</a>.</p><p>Disclaimer: Not mine.<br/>Feedback: is nearly as good as pears and toast.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dagol liked pears and could always tell, by pressing the squat bases, whether they were ripe or not. He maintained that a pear was only ripe for about five minutes of its existence, and that it was a terrible shame not to capture that delicious slice of time between his teeth.</p><p>He liked hot buttered toast and made tall stacks of the stuff nearly every night, and burned his fingers, like as not, for he made it in an unconventional way, spearing a piece of bread and a pat of butter on separate toasting forks, so that the fire browned and crisped the bread while it melted the butter. It dripped slowly at first, hissing when it fell into the embers, and then in a long pale stream of liquid it bathed the toast and sank into the warm grain. Sometimes Dagol's small fingers faltered in plucking the toast off the fork, and they touched the hot, hot metal.</p><p>Smagol laughed at him, his downcast eyes bright, peering up through his short lashes for once, and he took Dagol's burnt fingers into his mouth, two, three at a time.</p><p>Together they devoured the stacks of toast, slathering each piece with fruit preserves spooned out liberally from meticulously labeled jars.</p><p>Dagol liked to hear stories, but never tragedies, never too much danger. The best were comedies, and they always ended with a wedding or a dance or a feast, preferably all three. He liked fish skeletons, stripped of shiny scales and tasty flesh, and he would study their clean lines and cleverly hinged joints until they fell apart and were nibbled upon by the tiny crawling creatures of the moist ground. He liked the length of Smagol's twig-thin fingers, and his relentless curiosity and interest: in the rocks (sometimes jewels) and roots (sometimes edible) of the earth, in the depths (surely full of treasure) of the still ponds, in Dagol. He liked being able to pick out the red-speckled beak of a songbird in the shadows of a tree's hollow from fifty paces away.</p><p>He liked his reed boat; he liked how fragile it felt when it was all that kept him from the wetness of the river, how it trembled so eagerly in gentle waters and, further down river, playfully threatened to toss him out into the fierce currents.</p><p>He liked Smagol's eyes, how in the rare moments the light caught them they resembled two moons side by side, and he liked Smagol's back, sensitive under his own hands, and he liked Smagol's dark hair curling and tickling against his own face. He liked Smagol. Sometimes, when Smagol, sounding breathless and bemused, murmured "my love", he knew he loved Smagol. </p><hr/><p>And one day, Smagol's birthday, they visited Gladden Fields, not by any means for the first time. While Dagol knotted the boat to a bankside tree and readied his fishing line, Smagol leapt to the shore and plunged his hands elbow-deep into the profusion of white and purple irises, and soon moved out of sight.</p><p>The first yank of the great fish nearly pulled Dagol's arms out of their sockets, and though he dug his heels into the side of his boat and held fast with all his strength, he was soon overboard. Like a crow or raven entranced by shiny objects, he abandoned the line in favor of snatching something that glinted despite the mud at the bottom, and then he hurried to the surface, feeling a frantic burn in his lungs and furiously kicking legs.</p><p>It was a ring, and when washed of the disrespectful river scum, it was beautiful, the most beautiful thing Dagol had ever seen. He gazed at it resting there in his palm, golden and pure as the sun, and he felt heat flush his cheeks and he thought he might never simply like anything again.</p><p>All the things he liked, hearths and birdsong and the shrieking of tea kettles, were nothing in comparison to his ring, and his memory of the entertainment they afforded suddenly paled in his mind.</p><p>His ring was meant to be loved, served, worshipped even. That would take more energy than he had to spare for liking things.</p><p>Dagol lifted his ring and admired it against the quiet blue of the sky. A sunbeam glanced through it. He frowned; he felt swallowed up somehow, overshadowed and confused, his mind full to bursting with queer, ugly notions.</p><p>Smagol's touch on his shoulder was familiar and had never been unwelcome until this moment, but Dagol forced a smile onto his face, for it would not do to make him suspicious. Smagol, perhaps, he could still like.</p><p>But Smagol pressed him, demanded of him the only thing he could not give, said "my love" through clenched teeth, with anger and envy in his eyes such as Dagol never had seen before. Dagol felt a suffocating horror rise up in him, and he choked, and then he realized it was Smagol choking him.</p><p>Smagol said "my love" with his hands around Dagol's throat, and he said "my love" as he pressed Dagol down into the river.</p><p>The water was cold now and Dagol was sobbing, great gulps of murkiness and no air. He could still see Smagol above him, though blurred, and Smagol's weight on top of his body had never before been frightening. Dagol tried to say "take the ring; happy birthday," but only bubbles left his mouth. He watched, in a moment of chilling clarity, the largest float to the surface and pop, releasing the last of his breath.</p><p>Dagol struggled and kicked until his limbs were heavy as granite.</p><p>He was taking such a very long time to die. </p>
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